Meeting the Challenge

What makes neighboring different is that projects that are planned using it as a model are able to realize the strengths that already exist within a community and bring neighbors together to bridge the disconnections that have kept them from combining those strengths to their own benefit. Residents brought together using the neighboring model practice useful skills, learn more about services available in their community, and weave the social threads that create a tightly knit neighborhood.

Strong Families = Connected Communities

One of the critical challenges for organizations working to improve opportunities for families is to establish connections that lend support and success to their daily lives. The Annie E. Casey Foundation believes that families need three crucial connections to do well:

• Economic opportunities
• Access to services that work
• Positive social networks

From our work, we've found that neighboring strengthens the social fabric in a community and directly bolsters the connections within tough neighborhoods. It can serve as a crucial link that introduces children and families to the relationships they need to do well.

Everyone has a role to play in bridging disconnection, but the keys to success can be found in creating a climate in the community that encourages neighboring, facilitating a commitment between neighbors to care for each other, and using your organizational strengths to develop the capacity that can connect people through volunteering.

Want to learn more about the nature of volunteering in tough communities?

“Children do well when families do well, and families do better when they live in supportive neighborhoods.”

-- The Annie E. Casey Foundation